Sun Joe CJ602E 15 Amp 16:1 Reduction Wood Chipper

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Quickly turn your yard debris into nutrient-rich garden mulch and do your part to reduce, reuse and recycle with the Sun Joe electric chipper/shredder. Powered by a robust 15 amp motor, the CJ602E electric wood chipper and shredder generates speeds of up to 4,300 RPM, making quick work out of the brush, leaves and branches overcrowding your lawn. Designed for light-duty jobs, this wood chipper effectively chips and shreds wooden sticks and limbs up to 1.5 in. thick, reducing your yard waste up to 1/17th its original size. The minimized wood chips resulting from Sun Joe’s efforts are perfect for use as garden mulch around your trees and flower beds.

I have two residential properties to maintain (700 miles apart so this travels easily and handles the job well of recycling trimmings as ground cover where burning is not allowed or material disposal is costly. Setup is simple, proper operation is safe, and care is minimal. Exactly what I needed..., and was unable to rent at either home.

After researching and reading many wood chipper reviews I opted for the Sun-Joe CJ602E for two main reasons. Overall good to excellent reviews on dependability and price/value as compared to other brands and models. Although I have used it only once, it was a good workout of over 3 solid hours of chipping fresh plum tree branches that I was pruning down simultaneously. It worked best on 1-1 1/4 inch thick branches without any jamming or bogging down. It did take some that were bigger but it really labored and did a lot of "kicking" back. Not once did I have to open up the cover to unclog it though. Only the spindly ends of the branches were not completely chipped, with about 3-4 inches left that would easily flow through and fall in a discarded 2.5 gal tile adhesive bucket I used to collect all the wood chips as I fed the branches through the chipper. I was surprised by how stable it was while using it on any surface, concrete pavers or on the lawn grass. I did prefer the lawn since it would not vibrate as much and helped keep the noise down better.

As far as the noise level, I did not find it so loud that I needed to wear ear protection nor did I wear eye protection. If used properly, there should not be any wood chips flying out since the rubber baffles do a very good job of keeping all pieces inside the chipping chamber. Some reviews and the owners manual also suggest the use of gloves but again and in my opinion, if the feeding of branches is done properly it is best not to use gloves which take away the tactile sense of the hands while operating the unit, specially the on/off switch. Common sense, alertness and patience, are really important factors that provide feed back in how the equipment is doing it's job. Ear muffs and gloves would probably reduce this sort of input. If you feel the need to wear eye protection, by all means wear it.

I made a modification that really helped in the collection of the wood chips. I traced and cut a piece of 1/2" plywood into a shelve which I then screwed to the tubular front of the unit's legs. On the shelf I then placed the 2.5 gal bucket which was perfectly held in place by the unit's bottom discharge chute. It worked like a charm with hardly any chips being spilled on the ground. A 5 gal paint pail can be used but it would need to be cut down so it will fit under the discharge chute, also a small plastic storage chest should work as well.

Yes, this chipper is really neat and fun to work with. I am looking forward to the next season when I will have the chance to do all the crepe myrtles prunings which I cut in pieces by hand this time before I convinced myself to get a wood chipper.

Overall this chipper did very well. It mulched larger branches well but seemed to not do as well on the twigs. I purchased this in the early fall to mulch trimmings from 20 rose of sharon bushes in my yard. Due to persistent wet weather and other issues I did not trim and mulch them until after Thanksgiving and by that time most of the leaves has fallen. Perhaps lack of foliage is why the twigs were not mulched but were chopped in four to five inch pieces.

This little electric wood chipper more than paid for itself the first day it was put into service. Once assembled it was used to chip all of the trimmings from an overgrown 5 foot high by 50 foot long chainlink fence. It ran for more than nine hours being stopped long enough for the user to collect more material to chip. After two long days of chipping the chipper seemed to be run a little slowly. A quick cleaning of the cutting surfaces and edges and this little JC602E was back up and running as well as it did the first time anything was fed into the hopper to be chipped.

The bolts holding the blades in place were a little difficult to loosen, and we did need a little help from someone who had absolutely no problem loosening that one stubborn bolt. Since he had the blades out anyway, he showed me how to sharpen the blades when the blades got to where they needed sharpening. Even after all those hours of chipping, the blades didn't need to be sharpened, but since he had the blades out anyway, he showed me how to sharpen the blades when the blades got to where they would need to be sharpened.

Really good at reducing the volume of yard waste so I now put out one bag of waste material instead of the 3 or four I use to. It probably isn't an essential item but it sure makes a much neater processes out of my yard work. It really doesn't do well for leaves but there is a product specific to mulching leaves.

"Reconditioned tools from CPO works as good as new at almost half the price. I will buy them again and will definitely shop with CPO...oh, and I don't do surveys...but, this time I just had to!" -James W.